There’s a press release floating around from UbiSoft today that is noticeably more triumphant than most. The gist: the company will develop and publish a game based on Avatar, James Cameron’s distantly upcoming sci-fi epic.
This isn’t much of a surprise, since UbiSoft has established good relations with WETA (which is handling f/x duties for the film) and has also become a more respectable purveyor of licensed titles than most. Look for a lot more about the company’s work with Robert Zemeckis and Beowulf to emerge later this week at Comic Con.
Cameron gushes with praise for Ubi: For the movie Avatar we are creating a world rich in character, detail, conflict and cultural depth. It has the raw material for a game that the more demanding gamers of today will want to get their hands on – one that is rich in visuals and ideas, and challenging in play. I told the Ubisoft team I wanted them to be free to do their very best work, and not think of this as a movie-based game. They responded with a fully realized presentation which captured the soul of the world and the characters, while promising to be a knockout game on its own terms. Their passion inspired my confidence that they are going to do something transcendental.
I’m hoping that Cameron is more hands-on than most with this project. Whatever my thoughts on the director may be (and they are decidedly mixed) he’s nothing if not a stickler for detail and exacting when it comes to his vision of quality. If he’s got his hands in Ubi’s work, this could turn out nice.
The film’s May 2009 opening gives Ubi almost two years to get the game right; don’t expect to see much from it before E3 next year.
And now the important question: will it be in 3D?